PressThis: How to Become a Travel Writer (seriously)

For a little over a year, I have thought about traveling since it’s something that I love to do but don’t get a chance to… hardly. I always wanted to explore the world, nationally and internationally since I was a young girl.

For those of you who have been following me a while, you know I love to write. Writing is a lifelong passion of mines and a way of life. Anyway, although I am working hard on my craft, to get my content, stories, etc out there, I’m not giving up. Some things been going on and I won’t speak negative on them.

I am, though, considering other ways, just haven’t started, though I am sharing what I researched for anyone who may be thinking about trying travel writing out.

I’ve included a preview below on tips for becoming a travel writer. You can click on the link to learn more. Hope this helps anyone.

How to become a travel writer.

1. Read.

Start reading and don’t stop.

Read all the “greats,” but don’t skip the more obscure writers. Read magazines. Get yourself a library card if you don’t have one, and if you can’t do that, check Google Books and Google Magazines.

The idea isn’t to imitate, but to simply know what — what genres, what styles, what writers — came before you, as well as who your contemporaries are.

2. Redefine the genre of travel writing.

“Travel writing” includes hotel reviews and destination guides, published in guidebooks and in glossy travel magazines. But travel writing’s more than service pieces.

Check out this genre-busting, long-format narrative by Porter Fox. Or this blog postu by multi-genre writer Elizabeth Eslami, which I’d categorize as “place-based writing.”

In a way, all movement and all settling is travel, and so the stories we tell about these experiences are “travel writing” in the broadest sense of the word. Even if some editors don’t see it that way.

3. Start a blog.

In the not-so-distant past, a writer had to have a decent portfolio of publication credits to be considered a “travel writer,” and certainly to be published in a glossy mag.

Not so anymore.

Thousands of writers have published their writing primarily or exclusively on their blogs. Some have gotten book deals. Some have gotten print gigs. Some get offers of free travel. And some get nothing more than the recognition that their writing means something to a random reader who stumbled across their blog doing a Google search.

Not sure how to get started? Check out Matador’s stockpile of blogging tips.

4. Develop your online presence.

Use Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms to connect with other writers, editors, and readers.

5. Build a network, online and off.

Start your blog, set up a Facebook and Twitter account, but make sure you get offline, too. Stories and relationships don’t develop best through a screen. That only happens at ground level.

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Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All." (Gospel of Thomas saying 2)